This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention disclosed below. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise explicitly indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section. Abbreviations that may be found in the specification and/or the drawing figures are defined below at the end of the specification but prior to the claims.
Mobile broadband traffic continues to increase at an astounding rate. Estimates of the increase are as high as a doubling of traffic each year for at least the next five years. Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) are being utilized more often to increase the traffic capability in congested areas. In these networks, an “overlay” cell (such as a macro cell), with a higher power and a larger coverage area, is complemented with “underlay” cells (such as pico cells) having lower power smaller coverage areas than the macro cell but underlie some portion of the macro cell. The lower power cells reduce demands on the macro cell while at the same time providing additional traffic capacity.
Although the lower power cells are beneficial, during periods of low usage, the lower power cells require additional power usage beyond that required by the macro cell. Therefore, there are currently techniques to allow the lower power cells (or functions thereof) to turn off during periods of low usage. The subsequent turn on of the lower power cells (or the functions thereof) may cause additional problems, which are addressed below.